Obama's response to McCain's acceptance speech was right on the money. (Or lack of money for the common folk who McCain likes to ignore.)
From MSGOP:
DURYEA, Pa. - Democrat Barack Obama called Republican rival John McCain's acceptance speech the final piece of an out-of-touch convention that focused on its nominee's biography instead of the struggles of the middle class.
"If you watched the Republican National Convention over the last three days, you wouldn't know that we have the highest unemployment in five years because they didn't say a thing about what is going on with the middle class," Obama told workers at a specialty glass factory.
Out of touch! And living in the past!
That is exactly the truth that people need to hear about the differences in the two candidates.
Here's a look at the numbers:
2000 (Bill Clinton left office)~~number of unemployed:
per the Bureau of Labor Statistics
Families experiencing unemployment in 2000
Of the nation's 71.7 million families, 5.7 percent reported having an unemployed member in an average week in 2000, a decline of 0.3 percentage point from the previous year.
Families with unemployed member(s), 1999-2000
The proportion of black families with an unemployed member in 2000 (10.2 percent) was higher than the proportion for either Hispanic (9.0 percent) or white families (5.0 percent). Hispanic families had the largest drop in unemployment between 1999 and 2000, from 9.7 percent to 9.0 percent.
Recently, the labor department released the current unemployment numbers. Via the Wall Street Journal and they don't look good for the average person!
The U.S. unemployment rate in July hit a four-year high and job losses continued for the seventh consecutive month, raising concerns about the economy's prospects in coming months.
"Consumers are nervous about job security and income and household wealth," a troubling sign because consumer spending represents more than two-thirds of the U.S. economy, said Bernard Baumohl, managing director of the Economic Outlook Group in Princeton, N.J. "If there's no improvement in labor markets, there's nothing to make people go out and spend. ... That's why I'm very pessimistic about the second half of the year."
Hell, I'm pessimistic too! I live in a state where we are losing jobs every single day! I live in a state with the highest foreclosure rate! And I'm damn sick and tired of seeing my smart, well-educated, intellectually honest and hard working friends lose their jobs!
McCain is being intellectually dishonest and he's counting on people buying into his personal story and leaping out of their own personal Republican induced nightmare!.
Look, there's a reason McCain uses the POW refrain and why he has to live in the past. It's because peoples' daily lives in these current times have suffered--suffered!!!--from every aspect imaginable, and McCain and his party have been responsible for this downturn!
From the "number cruncher"
Unemployment rates from January 2000 - July 2008, including those who have given up looking and those who are employed part-time but seeking full-time employment:
Unemployment rates in July 2008 are now almost equal to those of the recession of 2001.
It almost makes the brain hurt to remember our prosperous times during Bill Clinton's Presidency, doesn't it?!
Every day, Obama keeps fighting for our jobs and for our health care. He's fighting for us against a media that needs to work their ass off to hide McCain's corruption, his lobbyist ties, and his out of touch, no principled approach to government.
Look, Obama gets it. "A government for the people and by the people..." (For the common good of the people...)
Here's Obama's speech from yesterday. Just listen to it!
Obama gets it. It's about jobs for the people. It's about health care for the people. It's about education, science, green technology. (The list goes on...!)
We all get it. When McCain was twenty-something he served and was a POW. But our government provided opportunities for John McCain and his generation that allowed them to prosper and to have access to higher quality jobs and a better life.
This election isn't about McCain's 5 years. It's about the next 50 years!
We want to create a better future for our kids, because these last eight years have taken hope (jobs and homes) away for people of all ages--the young, the old, and the tweeners too.
John McCain is a seventy-two year old man, living in seven or more houses, and wanting to live in a brand new White House. But we can't let him have that until each and every American is given the opportunity to live in one house, receives high quality education, and receives universal health care.
It's not about 40 years ago.
It's about the present and the future.
Now, let's get out the vote for Obama and for every progressive down the ticket!
With us...it's a change we can believe in!
UPDATE:
Via fhamme (Biden's video)
This is awesome -- Joe Biden just tears John McCain and Sarah Palin apart for completely ignoring every single major economic issue facing America and for offering nothing but sarcastic personal attacks.
Wow!
Update 2:
"Out of desperation, people sell their family heirlooms."
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...
The for-sale listings on the online hub Craigslist come with plaintive notices, like the one from the teenager in Georgia who said her mother lost her job and pleaded, "Please buy anything you can to help out."
Or the seller in Milwaukee who wrote in one post of needing to pay bills — and put a diamond engagement ring up for bids to do it.
Struggling with mounting debt and rising prices, faced with the toughest economic times since the early 1990s, Americans are selling prized possessions online and at flea markets at alarming rates.
To meet higher gas, food and prescription-drug bills, they are selling off Grandmother's dishes and their own belongings. Some of the household purging has been extremely painful — families forced to part with heirlooms.
"This is not about downsizing. It's about needing gas money," said Nancy Baughman, founder of eBizAuctions, an online-auction service she runs out of her garage in Raleigh, N.C. One formerly affluent customer is now unemployed and had to unload Hermès leather jackets and Versace jeans and silk shirts.
At Craigslist, which has become a kind of online flea market for the world, the number of for-sale listings has soared 70 percent since last July. In March, the number of listings more than doubled to almost 15 million from the year-ago period.
Craigslist CEO Jeff Buckmaster acknowledged the increasing popularity of selling all sorts of items on the Web, but he said the rate of growth is "moving above the usual trend line." He said he was amazed at the desperate tone in some ads.
http://www.cnn.com/...
Jobless Rate SOARS